


Just a Feeling

by ltgmars



Category: Arashi (Band), V6 (Band)
Genre: Humor, M/M, Office
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2019-03-10 14:16:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13503279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ltgmars/pseuds/ltgmars
Summary: Miyake Ken joins the office, and Nino's life gets much, much worse.





	Just a Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](https://kitto-slutparty.livejournal.com/profile)[kitto_slutparty](https://kitto-slutparty.livejournal.com/) 2016, originally posted [](https://kitto-slutparty.livejournal.com/43667.html). Written for [](https://airairo.livejournal.com/profile)[airairo](https://airairo.livejournal.com/), who like 95% figured out I was writing for her because I wouldn't talk about the fic I was working on, and then absolutely 100% knew the moment it was posted. XD

They don't have a particularly large or glamorous office. It's physically cramped and emotionally congested, and the exhaustion in the room is tangible.

So when Miyake Ken walks in and grins as if everyone knows him, or at least as if everyone should, it feels that much more crowded and uncomfortable, an office of seven welcoming the personality of thirty. And when he meets Nino's eyes, he grins even wider, visibly smug, and Nino hates him all over again.

"Miyake is joining us to assist with overseas expansion and general operations," Sakamoto explains. His expression is friendly but his voice is nothing but business. "Sakurai, get him familiar with our contacts in South Korea."

"Will do," Sho says with a curt nod, equally business. It's a diplomatic smile at best, lips pressed together matter-of-factly, Sho's standard I-just-met-you cautionary face. Nino watches Miyake smile back, who's watching Sho like he's a new plaything.

"Ninomiya," Sakamoto continues, and Nino feels the dread trickle up his throat, "help him get settled in the office."

Sakamoto's eyes are on him, sharp and expectant. Nino nods simply. "Understood."

"Great." Sakamoto grins freely; the morning meeting is over. "Let's have a good day today." The room almost crackles then, fizzling into the softer atmosphere they're used to working in. The exhaustion remains, an old friend that wraps around them like a threadbare security blanket, grounding them.

Nino watches as Sakamoto and Nagano retreat to their part of the space, a separate office with a door that stays open except when it's closed. Nagano's fingers drag along the long knob, resting for a moment before something tells them to leave the door open for now. Nino smirks to himself.

"So," Miyake says next to him. The sound of his voice suggests he's also watching Sakamoto and Nagano, equally amused. Nino turns to him and the first thing he sees is Miyake's sharp jaw, and then the way the muscles in his neck shift as he returns his attention to Nino. Nino vows never to notice this again. "Fancy meeting you here."

.

Miyake comes with years of experience at a bigger company, where he fluttered through departments once every few years the way you do at bigger companies, enjoying relative success as yet another employee who could have slowly risen through the ranks over the course of his life but chose instead to defect. He looks forward to working at a small company, he'd explained during his greeting that morning, where he can be a part of a real team, where his contributions will have a real impact, where he can connect with customers in a real way. For real.

Nino gives him a cursory tour of the office, which starts and ends in about three sentences from where they're standing in front of their adjacent desks: Aiba-san and Sho-san do finances and communications bullshit, but they're interesting people once you get to know them; Ohno-san will design your employee pen for you, so let him stare at you for a while till he finds what he needs; Jun-kun is working ideas for a new retractable pen, so don't bug him.

"And you do marketing," Miyake concludes with a quick glance at Nino's computer screen, icons for various photo and video editors lined up neatly on his taskbar. Miyake's eyes linger for a moment, an extra blink and a small smile spared for the old picture of Nino's dog that he uses as his desktop wallpaper. Nino shrugs because he has nothing substantive to say. "Anything else I need to know about the office?"

"Not really. You'll need to get your key card from Nagano-kun." They turn to look toward the executive office; the door is closed. "Later," Nino adds with finality, and he hates how rewarding it feels to hear Miyake's chuckle. "Oh, bathroom is out the main door and in the hallway." Nino waves his arm in the general direction of not-this-office. "And we have an office snack corner set up over there." His arm continues its aimless wandering. "A hundred yen a pop. The dude comes in to restock once a week or so." Nino keeps his voice carefully measured, desperate not to reveal that "the dude" isn't just the office snack man to him. Miyake hums with significance, and Nino doesn't bother to hide his frown.

"You like him," Miyake states more than asks. "I've got a friend who does office snacks, you know. Maybe they know each other." Nino can practically hear the gleam in Miyake's eyes.

"I don't need your help, thanks."

"That's not what you said last night."

"That's _not even_ what happened."

Miyake just laughs.

.

Nino wants to say at the end of the day that he hated Miyake right away, that as soon as he walked into the office he knew he was bad business. Unfortunately, his grand scheme is foiled by the fact that they'd actually met a few days before, like he's the main character in some office romance drama with Miyake as the main love interest. He knows where this is headed, therefore, and he hates that he doesn't seem to mind it. In fact, Nino is maybe kind of almost ready to admit to himself that somehow, miraculously, against all odds and common sense, and perhaps against even humanity itself, he'd possibly had a fairly decent time with Miyake on first contact.

He came suddenly, a swirl of movement at the base of the office building, asking for directions to a nearby cafe and subsequently dragging Nino there to accompany him for a cuppa. No name or other personal information was provided, but Nino spent those few minutes noticing all of the details he usually doesn't find important enough to hold onto: the way the other man's hair flopped in front eyes in an artful kind of way, his lopsided grin as he jumped from one observation to the next, his easy stride betraying the fact that he probably thinks he lives in a fashion magazine. Nino didn't know how he got there, drinking coffee and listening to a complete stranger talk about nothing, but he enjoyed the little boost of energy it gave him. It was almost like he was seeing the world anew, like sounds were louder and colors brighter. He didn't want to call it love at first sight because the "coming alive" version of love was what he expects to see in the bad poetry Sakamoto writes in his spare time, but he was okay with enjoying the sensations while they were there.

Feeling bold, Nino took a deep breath. "Do you have a name?" The other man was tipping the last drops of coffee into his mouth, and he raised his eyebrows and hummed into his drink before carefully placing the mug back on the table with a dull clunk.

"I do, but I also have an appointment to get to, sorry," he responded with a remorseful hand raised to his face and a faux wrinkled brow, 500% unapologetic. "Thanks for the coffee," he added with a mischievous smile, nodding at the upside-down bill on the table between them and running away faster than was proper manners in a dining establishment.

"... eh?"

Nino arrived late to work that day, explaining to anyone willing to listen (Ohno, blessed Ohno, two seats down) the dramatic tale of how he'd been accosted by a stranger for drug money. He could practically taste the _serves you right_ in the air, and he pointed sternly at Jun across from him. "Don't say it."

Jun simply snorted to himself, continuing to sift through loose pages of notes at his desk. No sly remarks were made. A win enough for Nino.

.

Over the days that Miyake familiarizes himself with the office, Nino watches. Miyake catches his line of sight on more than one occasion, seems to relish the attention, but it might be inevitable -- Miyake notices even more details than Nino does. And while Nino isn't fiercely competitive about the way he lives his life, with Miyake he doesn't want to be caught off guard. It's a matter of noticing or being noticed, and Nino almost fancies himself some kind of wild creature in a savanna, trying to stay on top when a new beast comes in to threaten the social balance. He would rather not have a set of eyes on him without something to fight back with.

So he watches in 4D. He listens in surround sound. Noticing comes that much easier and in that much more detail when it comes to Miyake. Nino decides not to think about what _that_ must mean.

It's with a dark kind of fascination that Nino observes the way Miyake develops relationships with everyone in the office -- dark in the sense that Nino sees so much of himself in it. Nino doesn't make a habit of examining himself (he leaves that to Aiba, who thinks he's got Nino's number (and maybe he does, but he's never going to tell Aiba that)), but Miyake is like a burning orange streak in the office, making everything brighter, highlighting all of the little nooks and crannies of Nino's own personality that he hasn't needed to notice before. Miyake uses his charm effortlessly, burrowing into the hearts of each person he meets, shifting from new employee to co-conspirator in the quiet space between one word and the next.

Nino's charm is a shade different (Nino's not even sure he'd call it charm), but the result is the same. He once tried talking his way into slicing a watermelon with a historically signifant sword, just to see if he could.

The victory was just as sweet as the fruit.

Miyake's grin is a little lopsided, the same way it was the day they met, and Nino realizes he's been staring at his mouth for the better part of a minute. "See something you like, Ninomiya?"

He grimaces, not ready to admit to himself that he does.

.

On the days Morita comes in to refill the office snacks, Nino feels like a teenaged girl, helpless. Not that there's anything wrong with teenaged girls as a concept, or even as a category of human being, but there's something very wrong with a 33-year-old man using his darkened phone screen to check his hair, poofing his bangs to one side and practicing a few smiles before getting up to say hello. He hears Miyake next to him mutter, "Seriously?"

Nino ignores him. It's dumb and he hates it, but his heart does what it wants.

Miyake says it louder now, from directly behind where Nino's standing, just about to stumble through his greeting. "Seriously?!"

Morita looks up from the snack cart, the bag of curry-flavored chips mid-crinkle between his fingers. His jaw drops like he's a cartoon character, and he stares dumbfounded, past Nino, directly at Miyake. "What the fuck, dude?"

Miyake and Morita are, naturally, best friends who've known each other since middle school, because Nino's life is literally the worst thing on this planet. They tell him this over drinks at a nearby bar that evening, except Miyake's not drinking alcohol because he can't handle it, so Morita's ordered two drinks for himself.

"Did you hate him at first sight? Because I did." Morita's talkative now, much more so than he's ever been during his short visits to the office, and Nino is at once grateful to see a new side of the man he's spent months wanting to get to know better, and also itchingly jealous that he hasn't been able to bring it out on his own.

Miyake puts his arm around Nino's shoulders, and Nino can feel a physical tingle shoot across his back. Morita comes into sharp focus even in the dim lighting of the bar, and Nino hears Miyake's words like they've been transplanted directly into his skull. "He liked me right away. Right, Ninomiya?"

Morita's lips tug into an incredulous smile, and Nino finds himself staring at the sharp canines that peek out from between his lips. He wants to touch them, always has, wants to feel them tug at his lips, or nibble at his skin, and suddenly Nino feels so overheated he's convinced he's going to erupt. He swiftly shrugs Miyake's arm off his shoulders and laughs weakly in self-defense, searching for an appropriate retort as the heat passes.

Morita smiles at him then, eyes gentle. "Don't worry. You'll get used to that." Nino's body is still buzzing, and he doesn't have enough oxygen coming to his brain to process what that means. So instead he smiles back and nods obediently.

"I'm glad we could make this happen," Morita says, finishing off his second drink. The air shifts around them into a simpler, more friendly kind of atmosphere. Full of oxygen. "I've always wanted to talk to you more." Miyake hums a knowing kind of hum at that, and Morita's eyes pinch into a glare before he continues. "Sorry this piece of shit had to join the office, though. My condolences."

Miyake laughs in response, insisting that Morita loves him, and Morita pointedly ignores him, examining a faraway painting on the wall with deep and urgent interest.

"That painting is amazing, isn't it, Ninomiya? I wonder how much it costs."

Nino plays along for a moment, eyes wide with fake wonder, and they both laugh when Miyake mutters "whatever, assholes" into his barley tea.

.

Jun wraps around to Nino's side of the cluster of desks and lovingly deposits his new idea on a far corner in front of Ohno. Ohno sniffs his nose unconsciously and looks up from the sketch that he's working on -- the final design for Miyake's welcome-to-the-office pen, soon ready to be shipped off to the manufacturer and brought to brilliant life.

"Meeting room in 10?" Jun says, indicating the small table on the other side of the room that they call their "meeting room". Nino can see the glimmer in Jun's eyes that means he's particularly excited about this idea, and the small smile Ohno makes in response before he nods and wordlessly returns to his sketch. Miyake leans forward then, forcing himself into Nino's line of vision, as if his existence hasn't been yanking rudely at Nino's senses for weeks now.

"Drinks tonight? Go wants to see you." Miyake lifts up his phone to reveal a one-sided LINE chat, full of nonsense images from the internet and useless observations about the world, with no response from Morita other than the unassuming "read" label that proves that he does, in fact, know how to use his phone.

Nino's not sure how Miyake's latest deep insight -- a photo of a llama edited to make it look like it's blushing -- is supposed to mean that Morita wants to see Nino, but it's moot anyway. Nino blinks once and Miyake knows exactly where to look (it took some time, but Nino's gotten used to this, too). They both turn to the seat across from Ohno, where Aiba's popped his head far above his spreadsheets, an eager prairie dog looking for his chipper friend.

"You're finally done, MatsuJun?" Aiba is nothing but teeth and excitement, the same way he was all those years ago when this tradition started. They were still kids then, cheeks still dirty from club baseball practice where they met; back then, their celebratory night out was more like an early evening at an arcade or candy store. But these days, whenever one of them makes progress on a big project or otherwise finds success in work or life, the three of them go out for a nice meal, which gets progressively less nice as the night deepens and they fall into the dark corners of their nth bottle of wine. It ends poorly, on someone's floor, and they pick themselves up and crawl miserably to work together, crumpling onto their respective desks until lunchtime, when Sakamoto, also possibly hungover, berates them more like a dad than a boss.

Jun nods, satisfied. "This is just the first draft, but I'm feeling pretty good about it."

"The usual, then," Nino says with a small smile, turning back to his monitor. He'll be useless tomorrow, so he needs to be productive today.

He can feel Ken lean in close, and the lettering on the poster he's putting together seems to sharpen in response. He sighs, turns, and Miyake is there, centimeters away. Nino's still not used to this, though Miyake doesn't seem to do it with anyone else, and it's all Nino can do to keep from drawing back. He holds his ground stubbornly. "Too close," he says like always.

"Call if you miss me," Miyake says this time, voice low, something in his eyes that Nino pretends not to see.

"Please," Nino responds with affected coolness, fighting the prickle of heat he can feel rising to his face. He clears his throat and regains himself. "I'll be busy with my homies." He emphasizes the word that Sho had proudly taught them just the other day, because apparently Sho had completely missed the 90s the first time they came around. Nino catches Sho's eye from his seat across from Miyake; Sho knows he's being made fun of, but he seems pleased with himself anyway.

Nino looks back at Miyake and decides to drive his point home by pulling out his phone, making a show of deleting Miyake's contact information for the ninth time. Miyake gasps dramatically, apparently so offended that all of his ancestors must feel it. Nino rolls his eyes, warms at the small giggle he receives, and turns back to work.

.

When Nino is dragged back into consciousness, he finds himself wrapped in the quilted blanket Aiba got from his grandmother, in a quiet tangle somewhere between Aiba's legs and Jun's shoulder. The sun is equally as groggy, striping lazy early morning rays across the hardwood floor. There's a sad little pool of slobber on Aiba's pants; not the first time it's happened. Nino lets his head fall back and is about to close his eyes again when the synapses from his arm finally connect in his brain; he's fallen asleep with his phone in his hand.

Even in his weakened state, in a stuporous lump of his favorite friends, he knows what he's going to find. He swipes his thumb gracelessly across the screen until he makes it to his call history, and there it is, a series of calls to Miyake Ken (added back into Nino's phone when he wasn't looking the previous afternoon; in the comments section he'd added, "your favorite person ever who you think is so cute, you should date him already"). The final call in the series apparently lasted almost half an hour, and while sober (hungover) Nino has no idea what he could possibly have had to say to Miyake, sober (hungover) Nino also knows that drunk Nino probably said too much.

Nino groans and gives up, closing his eyes.

It's Jun's groan that wakes them up officially, the way it always is because he doesn't like when his clothes get wrinkly.

"Just take them off before you fall asleep, then," Aiba had reasoned once on the rickety, too-loud subway to work. They were pressed together in the morning rush and they smelled like intense hangover and, grossly but maybe heartwarmingly, like that weird mix of their smells that hadn't really changed even after a couple of decades.

"The Shiba will drool all over me again," Jun had replied, narrowing his eyes at Nino.

Nino put a stunned paw to his chest then. "I can't help that I love you both so much."

These days, there's a new dog in the office, a man who looks at Nino with such fervent puppy eyes that Nino just wants to give in and play with him, but he doesn't because the thought of admitting defeat to the likes of Miyake Ken pisses him off so much. As they huddle around Aiba's kitchen table, passing around a mug of coffee and sipping their panacea in small, bitter doses, Nino considers bringing up the phone calls; the other two would have been awake for them, if plastered out of their minds. But Nino doesn't know what he wants to hear -- that they remember what Nino said, or that they were already blacked out by then. Neither route gives him much comfort, and as much as he wants to turn his life off and restart from the most recent save point, a small part of him feels relief, simmering inside him like a cup of conbini drip coffee shared among friends.

He's been stalling for weeks now, but finally, _finally_ , he can move on to the next level.

.

Except that Miyake doesn't say anything about the phone calls. The morning after back at the office is like any other morning after, too bright, too miserable. The exhaustion in the room that Nino usually finds comforting sits like a demon in the corner, too present. The only thing different is that Miyake is there now in the seat next to Nino's, and he occasionally presses a warm hand against Nino's back, rubbing in small circles. Nino expects to be overwhelmed the way he usually is, but instead Miyake's hand is an opportunity to focus all of his attention on that single point, on the warmth, the movement, the way Miyake hums a listless melody that's strange and familiar all at once.

Nino's ready to admit to himself that he might like Miyake. He turns his head where they're burrowed into his arms and gives Miyake a small smile. "Thanks, Miyake-san."

Miyake smiles back for a brief moment before tilting his head and frowning into a dissatisfied noise. "You're welcome, but don't be so cold. You called me Ken-kun last night."

Nino frowns, his eyes dropping to an empty patch of desk in front of him. Miyake's hand makes its way up to Nino's head, where it pats gently for a lingering moment. Nino feels dizzy. Miyake's hand disappears, and Nino's head fogs back into his hangover.

"You're being summoned," Miyake whispers, grinning from the sound of it, and as if on cue, Nino hears the door to the executive office open.

"Come on in, you three," Nagano calls to them, business as usual. "You know the drill."

Nino heaves himself up and feels the strain in the air, taut like an overstretched guitar string, as Jun and Aiba do the same. He spares a glare at Miyake and his merciless grin before the three of them walk to the principal's office to get yelled at, not one but three dogs, their tails between their legs.

.

Inohara and Okada come with their delivery the following week. Okada's the one doing the actual delivering, his ever-growing frame stretching the postal service uniform to its limit, but Inohara uses any excuse he can get to tag along.

"New meat?" Ken says curiously as they watch from their desks.

"That's gross," Nino replies automatically. "Inohara-kun is our contact at the manufacturer that makes all our stuff. Sakamoto-kun and Nagano-kun actually started the company for him. He likes writing letters, so they designed a special pen for him once for his birthday, and he got so excited he told them to start a business making custom stationery and writing supplies." Nino had heard about their beginnings so many times because the three of them liked to tell the same old stories over and over again, Inohara at new levels of exaggeration with each retelling. He might in some lifetime have used that pen to sign an autograph for someone who mistook him for a celebrity, or so the story went a couple of times, but at this point Nino's not even sure the pen that started it all actually exists. "Now we work exclusively with Inohara-kun's company, and he makes sure we're their top priority, so we always get our prototypes engineered and shipped just days after our designs are sent their way."

Ken hums in acknowledgment, placing a hand on the small of Nino's back, and Nino feels more than hears his next comment. "They're that close, huh? Now _that's_ gross. What about the little one?"

Nino's absolutely sure that the "little one" can lift Ken with an eyelash, but he refrains from saying so out loud. "Okada-kun delivers packages for us. I think the muscles are from something else, but the last time I asked he basically ripped my ass off groping it so hard, so if you want to know more, that's all on you."

Ken narrows his eyes and snarls, and Nino waits impatiently for Ken to stop touching him so Nino can stop feeling like he needs to run his fingers along every contour of Ken's face. "That's _my_ ass he was grabbing," Ken says as he stands up and stalks over.

"That's not how grammar works," Nino calls across the widening space between them.

Nino watches with amusement as Ken introduces himself, and Inohara smiles wide like he's found a long lost brother, and Okada stops mid-movement to sparkle at Ken, a breathless "cute" escaping his lips. Sakamoto and Nagano look on with the same warm expression, evidently pleased with this new development of their latest addition immediately getting along with old friends.

"They seem like they'll get along well," Sho says, his voice wistful. "Bitchin'."

"Sho-san, I'm begging you, please join us here in the twenty-first century."

"To be fair," Aiba chimes in, "the older three seem like they belong in the twentieth century."

"Gnarly," Sho says, holding a fist out for Aiba to bump, and Aiba makes his little hiccup-giggles as he accepts the offer with a fist of his own.

Every cell in Nino's body is screaming at him to throw the entire office out the window right this instant, but when he spots Ohno chuckling at the jokes, _encouraging this behavior_ , he finds a more appropriate and humanly feasible outlet, throwing a dirty eraser nub at the old man across the desk.

.

Nino comes in to work early one day to finish the ads for the new pens -- they've done a few rounds of beta testing, and the final product is just about ready to manufacture and ship. Sho and Ken had been working on some press releases to push on the web, but Nino wanted to get his paper ads done well ahead of time and make the rounds to independent shops with Ohno before the official launch.

He doesn't expect to see Ken already there, and as much as it feels like it sometimes, his weird ability to notice more and augment Nino's ability to notice more doesn't actually make it into the realm of telepathy. Ken just sees a lot, and Nino catches himself seeing a lot more, too: the muscles in Ken's arms flexing as they move across the keyboard, tap-tapping, the small pout Ken makes as he leans toward the screen to reread some copy he's drafted, Ken's eyes as they appear and disappear again behind his swaying bangs.

Ken leans back, his seat creaking, and he crosses his arms, biting his lip in a way that goes straight to a place Nino doesn't need it to go first thing in the morning. And then, without looking away from his screen, Ken grins. "Are you going to come in or what?"

.

Ken grabs his wrist at the end of the day, and in that moment Nino can feel Ken's breath against his cheek, smell Ken's sharp cologne as it traps him, holding him captive.

They go to dinner that night, the upscale Italian restaurant a far cry from the cafe they visited when they first met months ago. Ken seems intent now, and Nino doesn't bother to hide the fact that he's looking.

"What do you want to do?" Ken says simply; Nino knows what he's asking. Ken smirks, annoyingly smug. "I know you like me."

Nino scowls. "See, this is why I didn't want to do anything."

"Want to date?"

"Can I hit you instead?"

Ken laughs, and the affection in Ken's eyes that Nino refused to acknowledge before floats to the top like a life preserver, something maybe worth holding onto.

"What about Go? That time a couple months ago you drunk dialed me, not sure what to do because you like us both?" Ken's told him this before, once when they were alone in the office, and continuously ever since, just to torment him. "What do you want to do about it?"

Nino wants to drown himself in his beer.

"You play guitar, right?" And Nino hates that Ken's noticed even this detail, just from the few times he's grabbed Nino's hand and noticed the calluses on his fingertips. "Maybe write him a love song."

Nino snorts at the thought. "Look, I know you have a lot of great ideas, but I'm not some character in a teen romance movie."

Ken's laugh is a little suspicious this time, one side of his face scrunching up tighter than the other. He's probably pictured himself as a teen romance character, maybe even written some bad lyrics for it. Nino decides to tell Sakamoto about it later; they can start a poetry club, call themselves Love and Bullets, terrorize the company with their words of love. At least Nino'll be on Sakamoto's good side, if only for a moment, and get a free pass to come in late a few times.

Nino huffs out a laugh to himself, and he catches Ken watching him with a soft smile.

The rest of dinner passes in relative peace, Nino employing the Morita Go Method of letting Ken talk at him while occasionally pushing back. They finish their meal and walk together, the lights from the restaurants along the street scanning Ken's face, soft and smooth, catching every angle, like they're collectively preparing to replicate something beautiful and precious. As they reach the entrance to Ken's subway station, Nino thinks he's safe for the night, stupidly, because Ken's hand is on his wrist then, his grip tight, his voice low.

"I like you, Ninomiya. Let me do something about it."

.

Kissing Ken is like nothing else he's ever experienced. Nino notices everything now: the dimpled wall behind him, Ken's hands hard on his hips, the sewn edges of Ken's shirt under his fingerstips, the lingering taste of the cola Ken had at dinner, the noises they make as their lips part and come together again.

Ken grabs Nino's wrist again and pulls him through the genkan, down the hallway toward what must be Ken's bedroom. Nino's mind and heart are racing, and he shouldn't be able to concentrate on anything, but everything comes at him in vivid color: a little vase on the dining room table with a single flower in it, an old photo on the wall of some dogs playing in a park, a tea-stained mug in the kitchen sink filled to the brim with water. And as they arrive at their final destination, he notices more: the slightly rumpled corners of Ken's forest green blanket, the sliver of moonlight shyly peeking through the blinds, the way Nino himself is a little more breathless than he expects to be.

"I know you're noticing a lot of stuff right now," Ken says, and Nino feels his hands working at Nino's waist, undoing his pants, "but you should concentrate on me instead." Nino hears a set of thuds on the floor as Ken sinks to his knees, and he barely processes the sight of Ken looking up at him with an excited grin before Nino's boxers are down and his half-hard cock sits defenseless in the air.

"I think you'll like this," Ken says, his tone friendly and innocent, like he's talking about a new flavor of ice cream that no one can resist. Nino begins to mutter that Ken seems to have a lot of confidence, but it's as if his eyes are a three-step waltz behind the rest of his body, because he feels everything before he sees it; when he feels Ken's hand and tongue on him, he sways forward to a song he can't hear, and he closes his eyes, letting the rest of his senses take over.

Ken chuckles then, a low vibration around Nino's cock, and Nino groans because Ken's a smug bastard who doesn't deserve the satisfaction. Nino hates him just as much as he did the first day they met.

.

"So here's what I propose," Ken says. Nino has the bedsheets wrapped around him like a protective tortilla, because touching so much of Ken's bare skin is still too much to handle at this point, but Ken has his arms wrapped around him, and Ken's breath floats like a warm wind against the plane of Nino's neck.

"Hm?" Nino is pliant right now, and he hates that Ken's made him this way, but his pliancy also means that his bitterness at the whole ordeal is less fierce than it usually is.

"Let's all date, and do a threesome thing, and Go and I can take turns giving you great pleasure."

Nino silently sits up and tries to leave the bed, leave this earth, but Ken laughs and tugs him back under the covers.

.

It's Valentine's Day, and Inohara's at the office begging for chocolates. Unfortunately for him, there still aren't any women there, but Sho's offers the bag of chocolates that his sister gave him the other day.

"Thank you, perfect," Inohara says, popping a piece in his mouth. "So good... now you _have_ to date me. Next month I'll bring you the whitest marshmallows you've ever seen."

Sho makes a face like he's accidentally fed a guest some rotten leftovers. "You always ask me that, and I don't know how to respond. Maybe ask your wife for permission first?"

Inohara bops himself on the head as if he's suddenly remembered the loving family he goes home to every night, and then he turns to Ken with a serious expression. "Ken, I've passed on my DNA to you, so I'll leave this in your hands."

"What the hell, am I your son?"

Inohara laughs, mouth wide, and his face crinkles into itself like a folding fan, lines etched deep around his eyes. They're like a map of his life, spent laughing, spent making other people laugh. It's times like these Nino understands why Sakamoto and Nagano started this company, who they're making their products for. This is when the exhaustion in the room feels the best.

Nino spots Ohno laughing so hard he's doubled over, a hand planted on his desk to steady himself. Ohno doesn't always laugh hard, but when he's caught in a bubble he can't get out of, he'll stay in it and laugh to himself until it pops. Nino grins at him. "You're going to have to knock that off." Ohno just squints through his laughter and shakes his head, still stuck.

It's good to have people like Ohno to share the same fuzzy wavelength with, and people like Aiba and Jun to share the same shameful drunk disasters with, and people like Sho to share some weird inside jokes and bad dance moves with.

And maybe it's good to have people like Ken, for all of the infuriating reasons Ken exists, and people like Inohara, who's leaving them now to check up on the "old man love" in the executive office before heading back to work.

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Ken calls across the room. The door is closed.

Inohara waves a hand dismissively. "I've known them since I was 12. I've seen things you can't imagine. I've even been a part of some of it." And he knocks and opens the door at the same time before slipping in and closing it again.

"Gross," Ken whispers in disbelief.

Morita chooses that moment to walk in, his giant box of snacks strapped across his chest, oblivious to the rousing game of croquet that must be happening behind closed doors. He raises his hand in his usual stale, lazy greeting, but then he seems to notice Nino watching him, and he presses his lips together, giving him a small nod of acknowledgment.

"Go do something," Ken whispers, digging an elbow into Nino's ribs.

Nino frowns and wiggles away from the offending elbow. "Do you really want a threesome that badly?" he hisses.

"Yes," Ken hisses back, teeth bared.

"You know we can all hear you," Jun says at a normal volume, continuing to click away at his computer screen.

Eyes wide, Nino shoots a glance at Morita, who's concentrating very, very, very, very hard on where to put each bag of snacks.

Aiba nods emphatically, making a huffing noise. "This has been a long time coming, so get it over with and we'll go out for dinner tonight."

Nino nods to himself and stands up, nods to each of his comrades at the cluster, nods to Ken, who nods back with shining eyes.

When he turns to Morita, he's standing there, waiting, watching, knowing that something different is going to happen today. Nino travels the distance across the room to get to Morita, five sets of eyes burning his back to a crisp, suddenly aware that he hadn't checked his hair poof levels today. He takes a deep breath and opens his mouth anyway. "Hi."

"Hey."

"So, I..."

"Yeah, Ken told me."

"Do you..."

Morita takes a small step toward Nino. Nino holds his breath. He can feel his insides collapsing like a Jenga tower. "Yeah. Sorry, I'm no good at this kind of thing." Morita eyes the carpet sheepishly. "But yeah."

Every cell in Nino's body is screeching at a pitch only his dog and Ken's dogs and maybe Go's poodles can hear. "Okay, thanks. So... later... not tonight..."

"Yeah, I heard. Your friends."

Nino nods woodenly, like his head isn't attached to his body. "Yeah. Soon, though."

Morita nods at Nino's shoes, opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. He meets Nino's eyes, and says in a rush of words, "Call me this time."

"What?"

"Call me." Morita pauses, continues. "Instead of Ken. I want to get to know you better."

Nino lungs are burning because he hasn't breathed in about ten years, but he nods anyway. "Okay, I will. Thanks. Talk to you later." A beat. "... bye."

He turns to head back to his desk, but before he can take a step, a hand catches his wrist, and his heart swallows his body whole. He slowly turns his head back to Morita to the soundtrack of seven billion people screaming.

"Here," Morita says, and he slips a bag of shrimp crackers into Nino's hand. Seven billion people are making gibberish noises.

"I love these shrimp crackers," Nino whispers, even though he hasn't had this brand before.

Morita nods. "Great." He looks around restlessly, nods again. "Get my number from Ken. Have a good day. Bye." And he makes his grand escape.

As soon as the door clicks shut, Ken's cackles fill the air.

Ninomiya Kazunari, 33, male, hates him all over again.  



End file.
